Flash Update: Fallujah Liberated

ISIS has been driven completely out of Fallujah, and mop-up operations have begun to clear the highways between Fallujah and Ramadi. But ISIS troops there have nowhere to hide, and the Iraqi Army has the numerical and mechanical advantage. It should take a few weeks.

What's quite amazing is that Fallujah actually had 4,000 ISIS troops, and the Iraqi Army dealt with them pretty quickly once they punched in. It's an amazing victory and shows that the spear tip of the Iraqi Army is quite sharp. Well-done.

After that mop-up, the road to Mosul is clear.

I'm getting updates from here, by the way: http://isis.liveuamap.com/en/2016/25-june-iraqisf-soldiers-have-raised-the-iraqi-flag-in-the

Manbij is taking much longer than I thought, in part because my troop counts weren't up to snuff. The Kurds are slowly working their way to the edge of the city, and keep repelling ISIS counter-attacks.

In a way, this is good: the Kurds are quite stiff of spine, and have so much territory around Manbij surrounded that, if they are successful, they will likely destroy the 2,000+ unit in the city. So it will take some time, but momentum is definitely in the hands of the Kurds and SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces).

Stay tuned for more updates.

Flash Update: ISIS Abandons Far Northwest

Through yesterday, ISIS had been pressing the northwestern Free Syrian Army forces away from Dabiq and into the mountains.

Possibly due to the Kurdish advance on Manbij (where ISIS was at risk of leaving their backside totally exposed), they've evacuated back towards Manbij to hold there, giving the FSA an opportunity to potentially surround and isolate the town.

Here's the northwestern Syria map for context.

Coordinated Summer Offensive Against ISIS

One of the tricky things about hitting ISIS is that they can hit back pretty well while you're mired down in IEDs and sniper fire. ISIS can go on the offensive somewhere if you've concentrated all your troops for a single offensive. Frequently ISIS responds to offensives with suicide attacks in civilian centers in the hopes of distracting the military forces against them. So lone offensives are incredibly risky.

And, as we know, the Iraqi army doesn't always do well when on defense. The Syrian Army is exhausted and depleted from 5 years of war. For short-term better, and long term... probably worse, each of these armies is deeply reinforced by fresher, more elite troops, and short-term allied with the ever-vigilant Kurdish Peshmerga. 

Iranian troops are in both Syria and Iraq. Syria's spear-tip is sharpened by Hezbollah, and they're supported by primarily Russian airstrikes. In Iraq, Sunni and Shiite tribal militias provide a lot of the hammer that the army needs, and US elite troops are on the ground to provide intelligence and backbone to offensive operations. And as much as the Iraqi army is a mess, there are pockets of excellence in the elite counter-terrorism units, which are the first charging into Fallujah.

This hodgepodge seems to be a combination that has a shot at winning. After a few months of stagnation, the Kurds, Iraqis, and Syrians have all kicked into high gear... almost as if they're coordinating. And they might well be. They're pushing hard on three fronts (while the Syrian Rebels seem to be mostly licking their wounds and holding fast around Aleppo right now), which might just keep ISIS off-balance. 

Let's take a look at what's going on in Fallujah, Raqqah, and Manbij. I'm currently using LiveUAMap, which updates daily, and the last few days have seen a lot of movement.

Fallujah

We all know this one's been long in coming, and that Fallujah's been under siege by the Iraqis for months. They move excruciatingly slowly (possibly to mitigate the risk of a disorganized force panicking and fleeing), and people in Fallujah are starving for it. But they've finally gotten their claws into the city and are crawling their way through.

Counter-terror units are grinding their way in from the south. As you can see, they haven't quite penetrated the tight-knit city blocks yet, and once they get in, it's going to be a bloody, messy affair. They're supported by a lot of US airstrikes and US "advisors" on the front lines.

The really good news is that the Iraqis have repelled a pair of counter-attacks by ISIS troops. Clearly, ISIS (which is of course greatly outnumbered in Fallujah right now) was testing to see if Iraqi organization or will would break under direct assault, but it held firm. It's a huge step forward from 2014's humiliating retreats, and I'm predicting that Fallujah is about a month away from falling.

Iranian-backed Shiite militias are on hand to deal with counter-attacks or ISIS retreats from the city, but aren't pushing in: the Iraqis wisely made sure the only militias going into the city at first are Sunni, as there's still a lot of distrust among Sunnis for the post-2003 invasion reprisals by Shiites.

Manbij

Manbij is a town that sits on the crossroads of 2016 and M4, which are both supply routes from Turkey that ISIS has been using to resupply Raqqah and its Aleppo province operations. A few months ago, Kurdish troops advanced modestly towards Manbij from the south via a bridge across the Euphrates, but were held fast by ISIS resistance. Things cooled down for a bit.

After that, ISIS turned its guns west to try to take A'zaz and Marea (north-northwest of Aleppo) from rebel troops and to hold off a counter-attack by Syrian troops from the airbase east of Aleppo (where troops had held out for over a year before finally being reinforced). That shift in force gave the Kurds an opening, and they took it.

The Kurds are storming Manbij from three directions at once, and the map above keeps changing by the day in the Kurds' favor. I anticipate it'll fall within the week.

After Manbij, the Kurds will still have a huge advantage while ISIS remains bogged down to the west, and I suspect they'll try to push that advantage. That said, ISIS could counter-attack, and they'd be in a frustratingly good position to disengage from the west, because (as you can see below) the Syrian rebels and government troops are back to fighting for Aleppo.

But if the Kurds can move quickly, they'll be on a race to try to take the other border crossing with Turkey. If they can pull it off, they'll have isolated Raqqah completely.

Raqqah

Raqqah seemed like it was going to be the last nut to crack in the ISIS war, but the Kurds and Syrian troops seem to have different plans. Pressure on Raqqah would of course make life much harder for ISIS troops elsewhere, and coalition troops would be able to focus on eliminating pockets one at a time.

The Syrian army has mustered a whole bunch of tanks to race towards Al Tabqah. It's open desert along the highway, where the more mechanized Syrian army--with Russian air support--has a huge advantage. They're picking up a few kilometers per day and should be able to close the distance to Lake Assad and the Euphrates river. If they pulled that off, Raqqah would become totally cut off from ISIS troops in Aleppo province.

Kurdish troops are also more quietly wiggling their way from the north. I'm a bit surprised at this for two reasons: first, Raqqah doesn't have many Kurds, so the Kurds have less of a dog in this fight. Second, it's a displacement of troops that could be used in Aleppo.

Given that, here's my thought: I suspect the Kurds are absolutely not going to storm Raqqah, but they want to move the front line further away from Kurdish territory, and be on-hand to cut down ISIS troops trying to flee north and west if the Syrians move into the city. The Kurds will keep the highways going in and prevent ISIS from moving freely.

The real fight will happen between Syrian Army and ISIS troops. I'm not sure if the Syrian Army intends to take the fight into the city now, but if they did, it would be a huge momentum swing. Assad and Putin may have decided going for the heart of the operation, a la Enders Game, is the fastest way to end the fight--much faster than slowly clawing back territory and saving Raqqah for last.

So ISIS is under pressure on three fronts. They probably have 100,000 men deployed in Syria and Iraq: if we compare this to the Peshmerga's 300,000, the Syrian Army's 150,000, and the Iraqi Army's about 200,000 fit-for-service troops, there's a more than 5:1 advantage. The trick of being able to use this advantage--against a dug-in and mindbogglingly fanatical force--is to be able to pick battles where the numbers are overwhelming and the enemy is off-balance. If these forces can bring guns to bear in a really coordinated way, they'll be able to make sure of just that advantage.

More to come as events unfold.

Little Rocks, Big Deal: Podcast on the South China Sea

So for those of you wondering what I'm up to in my analysis time, here's the answer: I'm spending most of my effort on working on Something to Consider. We have a podcast called ReConsider, and we just dropped two great episodes on the South China Sea.

The Spratly, Paracel, and Senkaku islands, in the South and East China Seas are a powderkeg right now. Probably even more than the Middle East or Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia is at biggest risk of becoming a war between major powers.

Take a listen: we have two great episodes to unpack the whole thing.

The first gives the incredibly complex context in Southeast Asia, Chinese and American foreign policy.

The second describes specifically what's going on in the islands now, what the risks are, and what the options are for the US.

Enjoy.

Why Putin Pulled Out of Syria

Monday, 3/14: Putin announces sudden pullout of Syria, saying he conveyed it to Assad the day before, saying that Russia had "achieved its objectives."

It was a surprise. Given Putin's foreign policy style, as usual, it was unpredictable. As usual, Americans and the West were generally left flat-footed. I was actually pretty surprised that Russia pulled out before Aleppo fell to government forces.

Russia getting out certainly feels like good news. Is it?

Yeah, probably. It's unlikely that this is a dubious trick by Russia: they've got a stalemate with a shaky ceasefire that's... actually holding. The rebels took such a shellacking that they're in no position to launch a sudden counter-offensive (I think). The ceasefire is likely to hold. Humanitarian relief can reach Aleppo, and it's possible some refugees will start being able to return to what's left of home.

But why not just extend Assad's power? Why pull out now? I think there are a few key reasons:

• Russia's economy sucks. Like seriously. Their GDP is $2 Trillion, which is--yes--1/8th that of the United States. Russia is more like Mexico than a serious-business global power. Throwing tons of money into bombs, fuel, and other operations costs is bloody expensive. Historically low oil prices and sanctions over Ukraine have been killer: its GDP has shrunk at a rate of 4% over the past year and it's likely to continue. They just can't plain afford a prolonged operation, and they've likely learned the lessons of over-reach that the Americans learned in the 2000s.
• Russia is far more concerned with its own borders. Ukraine is unlikely to be able to take back Donbass on its own... but Russia doesn't want them to be tempted. Russia is, in fact, still a very vulnerable regional power with enemies all about. It's got to keep its focus there, and doesn't want to take its eyes off for too long. 
• Killing all the rebels is not going to happen. There are just too many. 
• Russia doesn't actually want Assad to rule over an empire of ruin. They want a country that can get itself back on its feet--what's the point of having a client state if it's just a rotting hulk? 

Realistically, the best Russia can hope for is a coalition government with Assad still in power until 18 months down the line. Putin is nothing if not pragmatic in his realpolitik.

Was this a good move for Russia? Well, suddenly talks have picked back up--literally the day after the pullout began. Assad's much more willing to negotiate without Russia covering for them, and that's what Russia really wants: serious peace talks that just end the bloody war already. Other Syrians are more willing to talk now that it's just a 1:1 fight. Both sides have their patrons (the US and Russia) in these talks, both of which will be supporting their side while trying to twist some arms to get real commitment.

The final good sign for Russia--besides the ceasefire holding--is that opposition and government forces have both turned their guns on ISIS, and are making some gains... even without serious support from Russia.

Northwest

Now that the Syrian army has shifted its focus (finally) to ISIS, it's pushing to entrap the ISIS forces in the northwest. I'm guessing it's pushing to al-Thawrab in order to cut off the 2nd link (the Kurds took care of the first) between Aleppo and ar-Raqqah (the ISIS capital). ISIS committed a lot of troops there... particularly hoping to pick at the warring Syrian factions. 

This will be Syria's 2nd-toughest operation against ISIS (before the battle for ar-Raqqah, if it comes), and everyone is really tired. Putin is cleverly leaving the monkey on the back of the US coalition to bear the costs of air support. But encirclement would be a great first step. If everyone's able to coordinate their efforts, ISIS will be get pressed on 3 fronts here. Not sure if that can happen. 

Central

The Syrian army got pushed out of Palmyra and back to the front door of Homs, but is turning the tide. We see them expanding in 3 directions here to take back heavily populated areas and dislodge ISIS into the desert, where it will be much more vulnerable.

 South

Opposition forces have quickly advanced to the border with Iraq, probably high-fiving Iraqi army forces at the border crossing. They've now got a pocket of ISIS pretty well surrounded and cut off. One of many tough parts about the ceasefire is that there might be a bit of a scramble for territorial control if/as government and opposition troops advance on ISIS positions. It might be tough to not end up shooting at each other. It'll be a big test of the ceasefire.

So that's all the news that's fit to print today. Still giving my very controversial thumbs-up to Russia on this one; I think they accelerated the peace-building process pretty significantly.

A Big, Fat, Hairy Update on Syria and Iraq

Lots has happened since we last updated you about ISIS, Iraq, and the Syrian civil war. We're going to make an effort here to cover all the key changes on the ground, discuss how they happened, pat ourselves on the back about being right, and then tell you what we think is going to happen next.

Enjoy. Thanks as always to the tireless efforts of the Wikipedia editors of the Syria/Iraq map.

So there are 3 big places to look at this fine leap day:

1. Anbar
2. Mosul
3. Aleppo

But that's really where we always look, because that's where the hot action is.

ANBAR

Ramadi fell a couple of months ago, and the Iraqi army--in its usual excruciating slowness--has pivoted towards Fallujah. This is a tougher nut to crack. It gave the Americans hell twice during the occupation. But it's also full of people pretty sick and tired of ISIS's crap, so they're less prone to really enthusiastically take up arms against the government. They're also sometimes carrying out attacks on ISIS troops there. Sunni volunteers have come from around Anbar to join Iraqi forces, which will be a plus during the upcoming door-to-door. 

It's hard to get out of Fallujah, and conditions are pretty crappy right now, but the Iraqi army has the city totally surrounded and has set up very heavily armed checkpoints for those trying to escape. This also means that ISIS is able to escape, which is a mixed blessing: 600 have slipped out, leaving only 400 behind, but it means those 600 won't be eliminated (and they're probably on their way to Mosul).

The big black dot in the middle there is really just the city center: the army now has the surrounding neighborhoods. One of the reasons it's taking its sweet time there is that coalition warplanes are softening the city with airstrikes, and the army really can't afford another "drop your guns and flee" debacle.

Fallujah is pretty much a ghost town at this point, and scraping through the city center is going to be sucksville, with all the booby traps and sweet sniper positions in the rubble. But it'll get done.

And then, finally--finally--on to Mosul. But don't get too excited.

EXCEPT.

MOSUL

The Kurds, being the very fierce bros (and don't forget the many very bad sis's, too) and deciding (with much US coordination) to take matters into their own hands where they can, decided it was about time to cut off the Raqqah-Mosul supply line. For those forgetting, Raqqah is the de facto capital of ISIS. Mosul is the largest city they've got. 

Some months ago, the besieged Syrian Army almost lost al-Hasakah. The Kurds decided they'd swoop in and take care of it.

But a few weeks ago they also decided to push south and cut off the final highway that's at all plausible to use to resupply Mosul from Syria. So in addition to Sinjar--where the two key highways meet--the Kurds now control the relevant border crossings in the north.

So there's a lot of nope for anyone in ISIS trying to sneak anything across that can't fit under a burka.

Mosul is far from surrounded, and it's still using ISIS's typical leeching strategy to extract resources from the countryside, but it won't be getting more heavy weapons or serious troops from Syria, which means the coming siege has its flank covered.

Nice work. Did we call it? Totally. The Kurds probably won't march on Raqqah, but they've got enough staying power to make some strategic moves, and holding the northern supply routes is the biggest solid they can do for the war without going all out. Expect them to help in Mosul, as well--there are a lot of Kurds in the city. Or at least there were.

ALEPPO

So this is a hot mess. 

Russia showed up a few months ago and started bombing the snot out of the city and surrounding countryside with the intent of getting government troops back in charge. At this point, Aleppo makes Fallujah look like Miami beach, but it's strategically and symbolically critical. 

Russia's air campaign has reinvigorated the government's northern campaign. And it's killed a lot of people, including lots of civilians. It's dirty, mean work. It spawned another wave of refugees. 

But we're holding onto our controversial position here that the Russian intervention is the best chance Syria has to end this war and beat ISIS any time soon. The ongoing rebel-government stalemate is good for two interests: ISIS, and the grim reaper. More on that later.

What we're seeing on the ground is a massive offensive out of the al-Safira area. Southeast of that, by that lake, government troops surrounded and disintegrated an ISIS offensive. They're surrounding Aleppo from the north and south, and have cut off the rebel supply line from Turkey. They're pushing northeast, and recently lifted the siege on a military base that has been holding out against ISIS for over a year. It's moving pretty fast.

ISIS has really committed pretty big to the area. They finally captured the symbolic town of Dabiq (where their weird prophecy says they'll bring about the apocalypse) as the rebels have collapsed. Right on cue, the Kurds--having none of that--have started to push back in. They're butting heads with the government, but have managed to not start killing each other yet. 

The Kurds have also finally crossed the river from the east, pushing towards Manbij. It's a little later than I expected, but it's good timing: ISIS committed to the Aleppo front and that left the back door to Manbij open. The Kurds made a quick sprint towards the town but have faced some stiff resistance. At this point they may wait for the government to beat on ISIS a little more before finishing the push.

At this point, the Kurds are hoping to expand their territory to cover more Kurdish population in that area near the border, both to protect them and to stake their claim when the dust settles.

Back to the government: taking Aleppo and isolating rebel forces in the north could lead to the end-game for the war. And that's a good thing.

THE TRUCE

We're feeling pretty vindicated about our support of the Russian intervention: breaking the stalemate and giving one side an advantage (something the US wasn't willing to commit to) is what's going to end the war. And it's working.

The rebels, sensing that things aren't going to go their way, have come to the bargaining table with a willingness to compromise, which might mean elections or a coalition government. So far, Secretary of State Kerry has brokered a truce with Russia: the "moderate" rebels and government troops are supposed to stop fighting each other. The truce went into effect two days ago.

It appears to be holding--mostly. Russia has halted airstrikes on "moderate" rebel positions, and for the most part the guns have quieted around Aleppo. Russia is still hitting al-Nusra Front (the white space on the map), because they're crazy terrorists. It's--once again--a pretty masterful coup by Russia: al-Nusra is currently allied with the moderate rebels, and they're definitely the better fighters. In this truce, Russia has divided and conquered Assad's political enemies, and with the moral high-ground on the deal.

You might be asking: "If Russia/Assad are winning, why the truce?" Remember that the reason to win is to rule over a country. If it gets pounded into the dirt, there won't be much of a country to rule. Ultimately, total destruction of the rebellion would be enormously costly to Assad's troops and to the population and infrastructure. Assad does not want to rule a shell. The point is to convince the rebels they can't win, not to kill literally everyone that disagrees. 

And further, there's ISIS to deal with. As we've said before, they won't get dealt with until there's a united front between Assad and the rebels. And without a doubt, nobody's suggesting a truce with ISIS. So if this truce holds, ISIS has 3 enemies with guns--finally--pointed towards only them.

Will the truce hold? Probably-kinda, the way it's kinda holding in Ukraine. If they can get some traction, they'll be able to start really squeezing ISIS back towards the east, and have some serious talks about the political solution while they're organizing a final offensive. Working together against a common enemy will do some good to start putting antiseptic into festering wounds in the country.

Assad's going to scrape together something of a victory out of this. Is that the best thing? Almost certainly. Given the political climate in Syria, I can't imagine a rebel victory turning into anything better than post-invasion Iraq or post-intervention Libya, and lord knows we don't want that.

The Houthis Staged a Major Comeback While Nobody Was Looking

As much as it's a matter of choosing between the lesser of two evils, I've been rooting for the Yemen government in the Yemeni civil war, in part because the official Houthi logo/motto is:

"God is Great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse on the Jews, Victory to Islam."

This is on their flag, which means it's flying over the parliament building in Sana'a right now. So yeah, we're rooting for the government.

Bad news, though. The Houthis have not only halted the government's advance (remember back when the government broke out of Aden and started marching north?), but have totally reversed gains and each week are gobbling up more territory as they push back towards Aden.

It had looked for a while like there might be a tough stalemate in which the Houthis kept their "prime" territory with lots of supporters and lost the rest, and then they would make a deal of some sort, but...

Well, it's looking bad.

Here's October 12th:

Here's today:

I'm actually quite shocked; I'm not certain how a truly committed Saudi Arabia could be losing this war, but the casualty numbers are so low (maybe 2500 total soldiers killed across all groups?) that they suggest the Saudi commitment wasn't what I thought. Haven't yet done my research.

Putin Keeps Initiative and Drives Progress with Diplomacy and Deception

Who is Putin even bombing in Syria?

The US claims it's "moderate" Syrian rebels in an effort to crush them for Assad.

Turkey claims it's bombing ethnic Turks as part of a campaign of ethnic cleansing.

Russia claims it's bombing ISIS and other radical Islamist groups.

Is everyone right? Kinda, depending on how you define these things.

https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/667047735145734144/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw 

The US has a pretty shady definition of "moderate" with respect to rebels--it includes some hardcore Islamists that have allied with the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and are part of the official "opposition" meeting in Riyadh. Some ethnic Turks are part of the "rebel" alliance and are probably getting bombed.

The whole Syria thing is so messy that one can essentially make any claim one wants to unless one really limits one's targets to ISIS and only ISIS (which the US is doing). From the above image, we can see that Russia has sortof an "all of the above" strategy.

Here's where Putin becomes pretty brilliant: in response to these accusations, he has asked France to provide a map of the specific anti-ISIS rebels so that he can avoid bombing them.

There are a few clever things going on here:

1. It forces the West to actually plant a flag in the ground on each of the dozens of Syrian rebel groups. Were Assad to fall, which ones would fight ISIS and which ones would align with them? The West really only talks about 3 groups: Assad, "Rebels," and ISIS. Asking for this map forces the West to decide whether it really wants to declare al-Nusra Front (et al) to be friends.
2. It forces the West to acknowledge how inter-mingled these groups are. One often sees al-Nusra and the FSA fighting side-by-side, although each with an eye on the other. 

Putin won't--and shouldn't--commit to only attacking ISIS, as it would be the same strategic folly as the US has been perpetuating for a while. But without a doubt he is targeting ISIS, including oil wells and pipelines that have been funding these guys for years (leaving me to wonder why the US never got around to that).

But it looks like Putin is positioning himself to be the leader of a grand coalition by offering a path forward for the opposition that the US has not been wise or clever enough to do for Assad.

He's "taking the feedback (from the West) in stride," if you will, and is now declaring that he won't attack FSA targets and will, in fact, provide air support for them--if they're attacking ISIS. It's in fact a great way to twist the arms of an opposition group and potentially turn them into an ally: if the FSA allied with the Syrian Army against ISIS, the ground game would change. 

Well, doesn't that sound bloody reasonable? He said he'll even coordinate with the US on fighting ISIS, as well. 

And Putin is largely responsible for the upcoming Vienna talks that will seek a ceasefire between (as many) opposition groups (as possible) and the Syrian Army. Coordinating with the FSA is likely a first step at trying to wedge them away from the Islamist groups they fight alongside. Given that the US ultimately supports the FSA as the "valid" representatives of Syria, it would be an incredible coup--the Islamist portions of the rebellion would be left out in the cold.

Putin's calling for an election that would represent "all the ethnic and religious groups" of Syria--which means Shiites and Alawites as well as Sunni Arabs--which is something that our Nobel-Peace-Prize-winning President probably couldn't openly object to. Vienna may lead to that if Putin is able to manipulate the FSA in the US in the right way--and he seems to be making progress by a combination of exerting pressure, evading blame, and offering a positive relationship as a "carrot."

Putin's realpolitik is likely to do a lot more than talk of hope-and-change to promote peace in Syria. Perhaps the Nobel committee should be reconsidering who gets that chunk of gold next time. 

US Strategy in Syria is Just Insane

As I've been writing my other book, I've been taking breaks and reading a lot about Syria and Iraq because I keep hoping we're going to do something different.

We're not.

I'm not going to talk here about why the US might be choosing such a terrible strategy, but simply outline the ways in which it is so terrible in light of surprisingly limited criticism.

(It has helped me to replace "President Obama" with "President Bush" whenever I read articles about Syria to get a sense of how the public would be reacting if it was making stronger connections to the initial Iraq invasion and that goofy Texan everyone loves to hate.)

So let's tell the Syrian story in some context.

The Arab Spring

Early 2011, a whole bunch of countries in the Arab World start protesting their heavy-handed secular governments. These protesters tended to be some combination of:

• Western-looking, clean-shaven, tee-shirt wearing liberals (not "progressives" but "liberal" in the sense of "a liberal democracy") that wanted a liberal democracy of their own
• Oppressed ethno-religious minorities or majorities
• Hard-core Islamists that wanted to replace these very secular regimes with some form of Sharia

(First, I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine which of these groups are most and least likely to form powerful, long-term militias if anarchy begins in the state.)

Western media mostly portrayed the protests of the first group in places like Benghazi, Homs, Cairo. The protests of ethno-religious minorities in places like Bahrain that were put down by Saudi military action got much less attention.

Libya

In 2011, Qaddafi decided to put down the protests before they could become a rebellion, so he began a pacification campaign from Sirte going east towards Benghazi.

The US and some of its EU allies decided to intervene with air support to keep tanks from rolling in and slaughtering Benghazi, which seemed like a nice thing to do.

Scope creep took over, and the West decided that really the only way to keep the people  of Benghazi and elsewhere safe was to provide air support to militias to defeat the Libyan army and overthrow the regime.

That happened quite successfully, and Obama was clever enough to not get on a giant aircraft carrier with a "Mission Accomplished" banner because he is better at managing the media than Bush was, but the US decided we were done.

Immediately after Qaddafi fell, we left, and the militias that had fought against him looted army bases and armories as the army dissolved.

A democracy was formed, but it was plagued by well-armed militias and now-unemployed (and pariah) former army and government personnel. Violence and skirmishes plague the country for 3 years.

(Again, I encourage the reader to replace "Libya" with "Iraq" and "Qaddafi" with "Hussein.")

The story evolves a bit in 2014 as elections are won by Islamists who are pretty terrible, who then immediately get voted out but--oops--decide not to respect the election and use their militias to hold Tripoli. Libya dissolves into a (very slow) civil war between the new Libyan army and the Islamist militias. In the meantime, a whole bunch of different Islamist militias (called the Shura Council) take over half of Benghazi and the Islamic State decide to move in because the place is such a mess that they can get a foothold in there; ISIS takes over Derna and Sirte. And then some other local militias, who are tired of everyone, carve out their own territories. There are now 6 groups fighting each other in Libya. 

(Libya also makes for strange bedfellows: the Tobruk gov't is supported by the US, Russia, UAE, Algeria, Jordan, and Egypt; the Islamist government in Tripoli is supported by Qatar, Sudan, and Turkey.) 

Wikipedia

It's been a stalemate for the past 2 years.

"Fogg, what does this have to do with Syria?"

While one could give the US the excuse of thinking that "the intervention in Syria will totally be different from Iraq because we're not putting boots on the ground and trying to run the show from Washington," the lessons from Libya leave no such excuse, even for so inexperienced a foreign policy team that led the State Department when the US got involved in Syria.

(When I say Libya's civil war is slow, I mean slow. About 5,000 people have died since the beginning of 2014. 

Syria, on the other hand, has led to probably 300,000 deaths, 130,000 captured or missing, 8 million internally displaced people, and 4 million refugees. )

The one thing that the US and Western allies did right in Libya was support the rebels decisively, which at least knocked Qaddafi out of the fight. This has led to far fewer deaths and a much more "soft" civil war. 

Syria

Syrian protests started in 2011 because Assad has ruled with an iron fist as a pretty terrible dude, oppressing the Arab majority, generally putting his cronies in charge, having a Gestapo-like secret police make people disappear, etc. 

Things really blew up when he decided to torture a kid that spraypainted some critical stuff on a wall. Homs quickly got basically taken over by protesters. Assad reacted just like Qaddafi would have, had the US and allies not provided decisive air support: he's been bombing the heck out of rebel strongholds to try to end the rebellion as quickly as possible, and sending in troops with that air support wherever he can.

So what are we doing in Syria? The US has been supporting "moderate rebels" since 2011. But the word "supporting" is an odd one. We are funneling some weapons and supplies to them (which we did in Libya), but we are not bombing Assad. This is probably to keep from open conflict with Russia. 

Just as a reminder, the US and allies like Germany have been steadfast that Assad has to go before any political settlement can be reached. The US considers a totally dysfunctional patchwork of Syrian rebel representatives to be the "government of Syria," which is at least as silly as insisting for 22 years that the Taipei exile government was the "legitimate government of China" and that the Communists were just upstarts that would go away someday. 

Back to Assad. Assad knows that if he "goes," he faces a chopping block, and so do his cronies. The West is too ideologically pure to cut a deal and say, "look, we'll buy you guys a sweet island and grant you immunity." Dictators like Assad face "justice." So the US has pretty explicitly said, "Assad, you have to win this war or you and your family will die."

So there's a lot of motivation for Assad to keep fighting, even as Syria crumbles.

The US' half-hearted supported for Syrian rebels is just enough to keep the fight going. They have enough armaments to keep shooting and not collapse.... at least as long as they're allied with the al-Nursa Front, who is literally al-Qaeda. These guys are the really intense, zealous fighters that are really sticking it to the Syrian regime. Also, just in case we forgot, ISIS was classified as "part of the rebels" early in the war and between 2011 and 2013 we were still arming them. 

Sure, we tried to train some new "moderate" Syrian rebels so that they'd be more powerful, but we managed to train four or five of them before giving up. 

So now we're basically allied with al-Qaeda against Assad, because the "moderate" rebels are really kindof just the hood ornament. 

Imagining Victory

Let's imagine for a moment that we provided air cover and gave the rebels enough support to actually topple Assad. (This is possible if we support the southern front of Rebels with serious air cover, knock out Syrian bases and air power and supply lines, etc.) We could have done this with the "red line" excuse: back in 2013, Obama promised a big thick red line of Assad used chemical weapons. He went ahead and used them about 17 times, and we said, "er, well," and kept up our current strategy.

Anyway. Let's say the Syrian regime collapses, and let's say it collapsed before ISIS took over half the country. You've got Kurds in the northeast that want their own country, and then you've got the moderate rebels that number 40,000-50,000, and a bunch of al-Qaeda-and-friends (which includes a lot of groups) that number between 100,000 and 160,000. 

They duke it out. Guess who wins?

Basically, I don't see how the US imagines any outcome of the collapse of the Syrian regime besides al-Qaeda or ISIS or both taking over Syria.

But Forget That, Because Victory Ain't Happenin'

The Syrian regime is very, very different from the Qaddafi government and the Hussein government: it has pretty broad popular support, decisively controls the fertile heartland of Syria, and has the steadfast support of heavy-hitters like Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia (who are willing to put troops on the ground and are willing to bomb the heck out of the rebels, unlike the West). So we're not the only guys parachuting weapons and providing intel: the Syrian government is getting it, too. This is an all-out proxy war, which was not the case in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan.

So these groups have been tearing each other to pieces. Guess who gets to step in and fight at their convenience wherever these two groups are weak? You guessed it: ISIS. Remember that Obama called ISIS "the JV team" of al-Qaeda and we grossly under-estimated their potential strength (which he later lied about). 

But now ISIS has taken over tons of oil resources and is actually constructing some semblance of a functional state--something that no radical Islamist militia has been able to do since the Taliban emerged out of US support for the mujaheddin back in '89.  Now that they've more or less decided not to mess with the Kurds (who are a very united force thanks to their long history of shared ethnic oppression), they get to pick their battles and operate with a great deal of impunity.

The Syrian regime and the Rebels are too concerned fighting each other to be able to oppose ISIS with any serious fervor. Each hopes it's going to win and can then turn its attention against ISIS with united support from the international community. The Kurds aren't going to come in and save Syria--they have no interest in shedding their blood for that. 

(Wikipedia. Note the green "rebels" are the loose alliance of the "moderate" and Islamist rebels.)

The US and allies are bombing ISIS, yes, but ISIS is highly resilient. Remember when we bombed the Viet Cong and North Vietnam for 13 years and the North Vietnamese totally just gave up? Me neither.

So This is Officially Pretty Insane

The depth of delusion at the highest levels of the US government--and the utter refusal to learn and adapt--is frustrating and frankly mind-boggling. 

To summarize:

• The US is half-heartedly supporting rebel troops just enough to extend a war, but definitely not win it, which gives ISIS plenty of room to grow
• Oh right, we also armed ISIS for a few years
• The US is currently allied with al-Qaeda and a bunch of other Islamist groups and that totally won't be just like the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan 
• If the US decided to whole-heartedly take down the Syrian regime, al-Qaeda-and-friends would almost certainly smother the fractured moderate rebels and take over the country

All scenarios here lead to utter disaster, for decades.

The only way one can support the Syrian rebels and even hope for them to come out on top is to commit Iraq-level troops and support for probably just as long and just as bloody a conflict. And even then, you might just end up with the same kind of corrupt, fractured government that you have in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

But what we're doing right now is just terrible.

Enter Russia

Before I get started, readers should know by now that I'm generally extremely critical of Russia's foreign policy and territory-grabbing, to the point where I sometimes have to re-write posts to keep my frustration to a minimum.

At the UN, basically looking right through to the US Ambassador towards the White House, Putin says, "Do you now realize what you've done?"

For once, I've got to hand it to the guy. 

Russia has actually decided to end the war. It's putting troops in Syria and providing air cover to help Assad's troops carve back territory from rebels and ISIS alike. Russia's aim is to keep Assad in power, yes, but ending the war decisively will bring the nightmare of Syria to an end. 

Russia is actually the best opportunity the US has to get out of this. I know I said I wouldn't speculate on why we insist on such a stupid Syrian policy, but I think some of it is an attempt to "be consistent" and generally save face: we're not going to suddenly start supporting our named "bad guy" in the fight. And we've already backed down once on a line we drew in the sand (chemical weapons). We're probably resistant to coming out and admitting we're wrong.

But we're wrong, and it's killing lots of people.

Russia has proposed a political solution: the rebels ally with Assad to take out ISIS, and in 2 years after everything has settled a bit (which is pretty ambitious), you have elections. If the Syrian people want Assad, he stays, even if he's awful.

"Erik, are you saying we should change policy and prop up Assad?" Absolutely. We should have done it years ago, before each army was beat to snot, but while the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, the 2nd best time is now.

The way out is to work together with Russia and Iran, withdraw our support for the Syrian rebels, and tell them they get no more weapons or air cover unless they stop fighting Assad and turn all their guns on ISIS, full-stop. Any group that doesn't becomes our enemy.

It would be embarrassing to admit. But diplomacy is weird: everyone can know we're doing something stupid, but we somehow save face by not admitting it.

But what we're doing in Syria is immoral. 300,000 people have died, the country is a giant pile of rubble, 12 million people have left their homes (only 1/3 of which have made it to the tent-camps of other countries). The moral move in Syria is to end the war. The only way to do that--excepting an Iraq-style commitment that risks direct conflict with Russia--is to support Assad. Full-stop. 

This is Way, Way Worse than Iraq

Hopefully you have been reading this with my instruction to draw parallels to Bush and Iraq.

Syria's worse. Way worse. It has led to the deaths of maybe half of Iraq's 600,000 (and led to the deaths of more than 3x Afghanistan's 100,000) body count, but Iraq also has twice the population of Syria--so in much less time, as much of the country has been killed. Far more have lost their homes.

And unlike Iraq, there is absolutely no end in sight, and the destruction of Syria has been far more thorough than the destruction if Iraq. Iraq has cities, and an economy. Its GDP per capita (PPP) is about $15,000 per year and has been growing every year since the Hussein regime fell. Syria's GDP per capita (PPP) has dropped to maybe $2,000 after having lost more than 60% of its economic output (without the war, it would probably be about $7.000). Its HDI is hard to measure, but basically imagine that everyone in Aleppo, Homs, Hama, Derna, Idlib, Palmyra, etc, is living in bombed-out concrete husks without access to basic supplies, and 10% of the population is stuck under ISIS. 

The Syrian war's human toll--and long-term consequences--make Iraq pale in comparison. And it's the way it is because of US policy since 2011.

The Controversy over Syrian Refugees is Comically Depressing

The outrage over some in the US not wanting to take 10,000 Syrian refugees is not wrong, but it's completely misplaced. The idea that our moral duty here is primarily to 10,000 people currently in Turkish or German or Greek camps, and not to the 17,000,000 Syrians we're subjecting to a protracted, nightmarish war so the current administration can try to save face, is absurd.

Why the same Americans that protested Iraq aren't in the streets now protesting Syria is beyond me, but my current guess is that the guys in charge are wearing the Blue Team jersey rather than the Red Team jersey.

Screed over.

The Iraqi Army Has Entered Ramadi

Sorry I haven't been around. I've been working on a book about US domestic politics and this was launch week. So I'll be back with a lot more later.

For now, I just wanted to take 2 minutes to share that, after long last, the Iraqi Army has entered Ramadi center. They're in good position: they've got Ramadi totally cut off from all angles and they outnumber ISIS by probably 20:1.

Looking at the map below, there's really nowhere for ISIS elements within Ramadi to go, which means it'll be a bloody operation... but it'll be decisive. (In short, they won't get to retreat to another stronghold to strike back later, and that's critical to not having Ramadi go back-and-forth forever.)

It won't end quickly like Sinjar, but now that the Army is in the thick of it, the end is in sight.

In other good news, after a few backs-and-forths, the Army secured Baiji and areas north, which means they're wide open to head towards Mosul once they finally figure out Fallujah.

More to come soon, but I figured you guys hadn't heard about this one yet. Promising stuff on Syria, Russia-Syria, Russia-Turkey, etc.

Per Predictions, Round III of Ukraine War Begins for Mariupol

With ongoing wars in the Middle East, it's easy to forget the Ukraine conflict.

If you're outside of Ukraine, that is.

Russian-backed separatists violate the Minsk II protocols almost daily, usually through quick attacks that kill civilians or idle Ukrainian soldiers. Sometimes there are dozens of violations in a single day.

Over the weekend, separatists shelled the outskirts of Mariupol, killing a few people and wounding perhaps ten, using Russian-provided artillery. The pickup in activity around Mariupol comes alongside the massing of about 50,000 Russian troops on the Ukrainian border.

It's not particularly surprising: Mariupol is about 45% ethnically Russian and was a site of a number of pro-Russian protests, as well as fighting during the Donbass war. We've been predicting that it was next on the hit list since Minsk II was signed, largely because it would provide a major port city to a pro-Russian separatist state (resembling something like Abkhazia.

It's not yet clear how hot the fighting will get, and when. Russia is heavily dependent on propaganda to keep fervor whipped up among its citizens and foreign supporters. These shellings may be a probe (where plausible deniability is higher than a full attack) or an attempt to cause Ukraine to react heavily enough to "justify" another Russian incursion--a tactic that was used to great effect in the South Ossetia war. Shelling had picked up a few months ago before quieting down, and Ukraine may be simply gritting its teeth and trying to wait it out, rather than allowing itself to be goaded into giving Russia an excuse to return to Ukraine in force.

Persistence Pays for Saudis; Yemen Government Troops On the Offensive

Houthi victory in Yemen looked almost certain for months. Through the spring, the Houthis had pushed government troops into Aden and had almost taken the city. Had Aden fallen, government troops would have likely been unable to recover, their main forces having been destroyed.

Yemen, 4/1 - Note Aden in dispute. Red is government control, green is Houthi rebel control, grey/black is ISIS/al-Qaeda control, and yellow is Southern Resistance movement control (they joined the government this summer)

Through late spring and summer, the Saudis have been arming government troops and bombing Houthi positions. For some time, the situation seemed to be delaying the inevitable. But, almost-miraculously, government troops in Aden held on and then launched a counter-attack that drove the Houthis out of Aden and secured the port city in late July. The Houthis attempted a counter-attack, but were repelled.

Yemen, 7/26

In the two weeks since, government troops broke out of Aden to take the surrounding environs.

Yemen, 8/9 

And in the previous three days, the government army accelerated its advance, linking up its split eastern and western forces, and also advancing towards the north of Sana'a. It's a fairly incredible turnaround.

Yemen, 8/12

The majority of Houthi forces are likely being pressed in the south, which means the threat to Sana'a in the north may be quite realistic--particularly with Saudi air support.

We'll keep an eye on it.

The Iran Deal is a BFD

Joe Biden was famously caught on camera calling the passing of the ACA a "BFD;" I suspect he said something similar as Secretary Kerry came back with news that a deal had been inked with Iran.

This is a pretty BFD. As you can see, Secretary Kerry certainly thinks so. (These guys are probably really, really tired.)

I read through CNN and the NYT's summaries of the deal; I then decided to skim the full-text.

Immediate Implications of the Deal:
The deal looks a lot like what was hammered out in April, and we discuss the key points in an earlier post. In the new version, Iran is actually restricted for 15 years (rather than 10), but gets a greater number of centrifuges (giving up 2/3 of them rather than 4/5 of them). It keeps its stockpile to 300kg (which is a 98% reduction of its current stock), ships out all spent material, and can't enrich beyond a pretty low number.

The deal still looks good. A look at the full-text suggests the inspection protocols are pretty solid: the IAEA gets to maintain permanent access, and can visit facilities "daily."

If Iran starts breaking the deal, the sanctions can "snap back" with a quick vote from the Western powers. The Western powers are banking somewhat on Iranian domestic support for trade with the West--Rouhani was elected president riding on promises to lift the (very painful) sanctions from Iran, and if they snapped back due to Iran breaking the deal, it could lead to more unrest (like the Green Revolution).

Could Iran still hide some activity and create a bomb? Sure. But their break-out period (amount of time required to build a bomb) for the past 2 years has been 2-3 months, and now it'll extend to 1 year. Iran's had the capacity for a long time to sneak around and build a bomb; this sets them farther back from being able to do so, and increases IAEA presence (from essentially none, currently) to look for any such clandestine activity. In short, I think any objections that this is a tacit thumbs-up for Iran to build a bomb are just unfounded. 

Credible Objections:
Probably the big credible objection is by Sunni allies worried about Iranian power. Saudi Arabia was hoping that Iran's foray into Yemen would become a quagmire that drove it into financial ruin. The Saudis have also been intentionally keeping oil prices low (by keeping supplies high) in order to strain Iran further: they're engaged in economic warfare designed to "break" Iran's capacity to project power, and the lifting of the sanctions will undermine that.

That's not untrue, but it's also unlikely that the sanctions were preventing Iran from projecting power into Iraq and Yemen. The key goal of the sanctions wasn't to grind Iran into insignificance--that was not going to happen with this package. The key goal was to hurt Iran enough to make a Western-friendly deal, and that worked.

Why This is a BFD:
If we model Iran more like a Soviet Union than a large mob of irrational terrorists (and I think the former is a more accurate model), we can think about Iran's self-interest, and what a self-interested power (even one opposed to the US) would want.

The lifting of sanctions means foreign investment and an alleviation of inflation (currently 18.2%); Iran's economy stands to gain a lot. Iran's been very clear that it wants trade with the West.

As this investment pours in, as Europe starts buying Iranian oil and Iran starts buying European food and goods, we start to see two big things happen:
1) The US and EU will become bigger trade partners for Iran than Russia and China (this will take a few years but less time than this deal's restrictions)
2) Iran will start to become a source of oil for the EU

#1 is important because Iran is going to ally with those that serve its interests. It is currently allied with Russia for that reason--not out of any weird ideological alignment. The Western powers want to steal Iran out of Russia's sphere of influence and put it in the West's. The West has many more carrots to offer Iran, and this is a key first step to being able to do that. (To anyone who believes this is impossible, I suggest a reading of the history between the US, Soviet Union, and China throughout the cold war to see how friendships shifted based on interest, despite ideology. Remember also that Saudi Arabia, a close ally, is a religiously extremist, oppressive monarchy.)

#2 Is important because it changes incentives for Iran with respect to the Strait of Hormuz: if Iran is exporting oil to Europe, it would hurt itself by closing the Strait of Hormuz and, per #1, would have less interest in doing so as a favor for Russia. This alleviates some of Europe's dependence on Russia for oil, and means they're more likely to have alternate sources from Qatar, UAE, Iran, and Iraq if conflict with Russia ever arises. And that means hamstringing Russia in Europe.

So as odd as it may sound, the reason the Iran deal is so important is that it helps the West increase its leverage over Russia, which is a much larger, scarier, more menacing, and more aggressive threat than Iran. The Great Game in Europe is back, and this move by President Obama and Secretary Kennedy may be seen by history as a truly brilliant stroke.

Iraq Surrounds Anbar--and Might Actually Succeed in its Offensive

I'll continue to contend that the Iraqis are much better on offense than they are on defense: even with ISIS well dug-into a city and planting bombs everywhere, the Iraqis can slowly slog forward, in part because they're confident they're unlikely to get captured and tortured by ISIS troops when the Iraqi troops have managed to surround a city and besiege it.

Ramadi will be like Tikrit: Iraqi forces have surrounded the city completely, and are working on shoring up supply/reinforcement lines, positioning troops, and training local volunteers before moving in. The Shiite militias, who might otherwise pose a major problem in the occupation of Ramadi, are staying on the outskirts to block ISIS reinforcements and prevent retreating ISIS troops from getting away to launch a counter-attack. In part, they'll stand "at the back of" Iraqi regulars and Sunni militiamen.

Unlike Tikrit, US airstrikes will be involved from the start. These airstrikes made the capture of Tall Abyad (Syria) and Baiji (north on the map below) much quicker. Recall that the airstrikes also ended the very stalled siege of Tikrit.

Note as well that Iraqi troops are holding al-Baghdadi and Haditha, which means that reinforcements from Syria would have to go through miles of Iraqi checkpoints, and retreat from Ramadi into Syria would be difficult--again, a good sign for preventing a counter-attack in the future.

The Iraqis are also working on surrounding Fallujah. The map here is actually a bit out of date: the Iraqis claim they've captured the dam and secured the river south of the city, and are "at the gates" of Fallujah. Trying to take both cities at once will be a meat grinder, but it's important: if only one was attacked and the other left open, ISIS troops could retreat from one to the other, only to counter-attack later. Besieging both means that ISIS troops in both cities are isolated (this tactic was used to great effect by the Communist Chinese forces against the Nationalists), and the Iraqis can take their time, advance slowly, and strike where ISIS has been softened up by airstrikes.

In Anbar, time is on the Iraqis' side. Because they're training local militiamen--in large part to keep the peace after the fighting as credible local forces--they may even stretch out the operation, as painful as it seems to consider. Forces from al-Baghdadi may also advance towards Hit and try to guarantee no safe haven for ISIS troops after the Ramadi and Fallujah assaults.

This is a case where Iraq's strategy is to accept the hard fight, take the American's help, and try to eliminate (rather than simply dislodge) ISIS forces in Anbar. Doing so will mean that fewer troops will have to stay behind to garrison Anbar (and many fewer will need to garrison surrounding Baghdad, which remains under threat from ISIS' presence in Fallujah), and thus that more can be committed to the final brutal push towards Mosul.

Expect fighting in both cities to start up within the week.

Quick Correction on the Brigade in Eastern Europe

Steve, a friend of mine in the US Army, pointed out a very key inaccuracy in our previous post about the US armored brigade in eastern Europe: it's not a manned brigade, currently, just the equipment.

This changes the rationale from being a "spiral deterrent" to being a "fast-response force." US troops can be deployed to this equipment within hours, which means they can go be a "speed bump" of sorts for any Russian invasion. Since these are NATO countries, the US won't need to waffle and quibble about a response the same way that it did with Ukraine: US troops could credibly show up and start shooting as soon as there's a problem.

It's not 100% clear that the current US administration would do just that, but deterrence is a game of probabilities: just what has been said between Mr. Putin and Mr. Obama behind closed doors? How much has US resolve stiffened in the face of Russian aggression? I assume that the Obama administration has posed some credible ultimatum to go along with the armor. It means the high risk of escalation (and lower likelihood of success) for any Russian invasion remains, especially in a country like Estonia (which could otherwise be totally occupied within a day).

Why the US is Sending an Armored Brigade to Eastern Europe

Whether an armored brigade is "big" depends on the size of the pond it swims in.

At about 1100 armored vehicles (Abrams tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles, and some mobile artillery), such a brigade could easily overwhelm the conventional militaries of most small countries.

In the Eastern European theatre, an armored brigade is nothing close to large enough to be a game-changer. Russia's military sports about ten thousand pieces of active heavy armored equipment (tanks, fighting vehicles, and mobile artillery), most of which is dedicated to its western front.

Despite the numerical gap, the US is sending such a brigade to Eastern Europe, spread out from the Baltics all the way down to Romania. What we know is that such a brigade won't be a decisive force if Russia were to invade Sweden, the Baltic countries, Romania, or Poland (all of which it's threatened to do over the past few years). Why the effort, then?

Some analysts suggest it is a "symbolic" gesture for wary allies. I think a fifteen-second gut check suggests this hypothesis is weak: Eastern European countries are skeptical of NATO, terrified of Russia, and are smart enough to see past symbolic gestures. And US leadership is smart enough to see all of this.

I think what's really going on is that these vehicles are there to be a "positive deterrent" of sorts. That is, rather than deterring Russia by having overwhelming strength on the battlefield, this brigade deters Russia by promising that if Russia attacks one of these countries, the US will be dragged into the war: these units are mixed in with local units and have the right to defend such territory from invasion--all these countries are NATO allies. If that happened, US assets would be attacked and destroyed, with all the shock and fury on the domestic front that would come with that.

The United States' leadership would have almost no choice in the matter: they would face massive pressure to deploy more forces (probably first from Germany) in order to repel the Russians from whichever ally was attacked. For Russia the subsequent fight would be long and messy at best. If Russia lost, defeat could bankrupt the country, wreck Putin's reputation, and set the Russian military back years. Not to mention that countries like Ukraine and Sweden would likely hop on the express train to NATO and request heavy garrisoning by the US to prevent further Russian attacks.

So what this brigade does is that it embodies lessons from the errors of 2004 and 2014 that allowed Russia to invade and annex parts of Georgia and Ukraine. Russia's success in those conflicts depended on avoiding getting entangled with NATO and on pitting their forces only against the small domestic forces of their target territories, and on moving quickly enough that it won the status quo in the area. Such a strategy has worked so far, but its effectiveness would quickly end once an American battle tank was destroyed on the field. Russia could not have a quick, clean victory that way, and would no longer be able to use Europe's lethargy to its advantage.

Russia's leadership is also smart, and knows this. The US administration is putting American lives at risk, yes, but with the expectation that Putin will understand the consequences of attacking, and thus be far less likely to attack at all. It is a clever way of containing Russia in a world where Western European allies are afraid to get on Russia's bad side: the US uses its cowboy reputation to its advantage here, and deploys its own deterrent.

The final stroke of brilliance here is that it is a force that is too small to be a credible offensive threat to Russia, so Russia not only won't feel territorially threatened, but its leadership will have shaky ground on which to pretend that it feels threatened (and thus justify an arms race).

In a comparatively cheap, gentle stroke, the US has out-positioned Russia in most of Eastern Europe, putting time back on the West's side for sanctions to squeeze Russia into acquiescence. 

The Kurds' Strategic Chokehold of ISIS

The Kurds are moving so fast that the venerable Wikipedia article map on the ISIS war hasn't caught up yet. Enjoy your well-deserved vacation, user/editor Eratosthenian.

After taking Tall Abyad, the Kurds pushed south to secure Ain Issa and the nearby Brigade 93 army base. First, I'll draw it on the Wikipedia map I've been using for some time to give general context.

Looks like a march to al-Raqqah! Don't get too excited: the Kurds have no intentions of assaulting the city. But there's still very good news afoot: the Kurds are setting up their final choking of ISIS, which will assist the war efforts in both Iraq and Syria even if the Kurds sit around doing a whole lot of not-much once they regain Kurdish territory.

Let's look at a map with some roads for context--I doodled on Google Maps to get the idea across. The lines aren't that accurate mile-by-mile, but bear with me.

In the lower-right of the map we see al-Raqqah. Route 6 goes north to Tall Abyad, which is the closest crossing out of ISIS territory, to Turkey. We know that for some time, people, goods, and arms were flowing out of Turkey into Syria from the border crossing there. Now they're not. Already ISIS-held territory is seeing a spike in the price of food and other basic goods (according to the Syrian Observatory on Human Rights), which means shortages could loom if they're not able to establish another supply line elsewhere: the Euphrates has limited agricultural capacity and most domestic food comes from the West, which is not under ISIS control (and Syria is a net importer of many staple goods, like wheat). ISIS may be facing food shortages in the future, which could cripple the regime far faster than airstrikes.

Why is Ain Issa (the red-black marker on the map north of al-Raqqah) significant? Ultimately, it blocks ISIS from having access to the M4, which means the Kurdish rear is secure for an assault on Manbij. To get West from al-Raqqah, ISIS must travel along route 4 to the south of the Euphrates. Expect the Kurds to be regrouping quickly from the Tall Abyad assault, consolidating Samin, and then racing across the Euphrates via the M4 to take Manbij and Al Bab, both of which are heavily-settled Kurdish areas. Given recent Kurdish success so close to al-Raqqah and their new-found positioning advantage from taking Ain Issa, I expect the Kurds' chances are good.

The Kurds' final push in Syria will be to link up with their forces in the northwest and establish a secure front just north of Aleppo and across the Turkish border. Once they do this, they'll control all border crossings to Turkey, cutting ISIS off completely from foreign trade or smuggling. Securing al-Hasakah will also cut ISIS off from a concentrated area of arable land.

(I've included USDA agricultural maps of Syria and Iraq below to emphasize that ISIS' holdings are largely a bunch of non-arable desert).

 ISIS has been funded primarily through plunder and extortion, rather than production: without places to trade, their (admittedly vast) reserves of cash will become far less valuable. It will become very hard, very quickly, to get access to foreign fighters, weapons and ammunition, and food. The Kurds completing their conquests of northwestern Syria and the areas around al-Hasakah will complete a trade, recruitment, and agricultural choke-hold of ISIS, meaning time will no longer be on ISIS' side. And that's a really, really big deal.